Coalpail.com Forum

I have lived in this area for 40 years. When I bought my first home here there was and old, probably unused for 5-10 years, Godin Lg Round in the basement. The hole in the flue was capped and there was no pipe with the stove. It was pushed into a corner and used as a plant stand. Read about it, cleaned it up, and got it ready to burn. At the time a lot of garden centers sold bags of coal. Bought a few bags and got hooked.

The area was changing, lots of original owners who bought in the '50s & '60s were selling and moving south. Plenty of tag & estate sales. At one sale I saw a coal stove installed in the living room. Spoke to the owner's son about burning and he mentioned there was "room full of coal" downstairs that he wanted to get rid of. He was afraid he was going to have to pay to have the coal removed. It had been delivered via a coal slide that went up to the driveway but there was no easy way to get it out. I offered to take it off his hands if he had a couple of days to get rid of it. Deal.

Went home and over the weekend built a 50cf coal bin. Went back with the pickup, a shovel, and a couple of 5 gallon buckets. Moved the coal to the truck two(2) buckets at a time. It took a couple of hours but I emptied the room and loaded the coal bin 3/4 full. My first successful mining adventure.

Over the years I have found a number of semi-full coal bins at estate sales, usually when the original owner was moving south or had passed away. Recently not so many and none in the last two(2) seasons. I guess the generation that burned coal in the '50s & '60s have all moved on, the coal bins are now storage rooms, and these "mines" have closed down also.

Anybody else have any recent success with basement mining?

KaptJaq

Nice find K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not so much with covid...
The easy ones have been taken...

There are plenty of basement mines in my area.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/761052127864302/

I got some free basement pea coal once that had so much dirt in it that it would not burn, we ended up filling holes in the driveway with it. A buddy thought he was doing me a favor and hauled it all the way from south jersey lol.

A dozen years ago a grain elevator in Waterloo Iowa gave away a large building full of bit coal. If I had had the time I'd still be burning it, lol. I have gotten a couple small amounts of bagged coal but I have only seen a couple basement mines offered here.

My first basement mine was bags from a newly purchased vintage building. I went to pick up and after I agreed to take it, figured out it was rice coal. 47 bags. Fortunately I had a rice burner in the garage and at a buck a bag I couldn’t go wrong. 2nd was from an old barn that the owner was turning into apartments. Overfilled the one ton chevy pickup - Probably had close to 2 tons in it if not more. That load I put on top of the fresh I just had delivered. That stuff was severely dusty and dirty. Turned out it was range coal. It was so dirty I had to buy a horse *censored* shovel to sift it. Ended up with 10 5 gallon pails full of coal fines. Took a couple to camp and fed the camp fire. The rest I gave away on marketplace. Since then I’ve scored two 1/2 ton rice loads. Always on the look out rain sleet or shine - it don’t go bad...

Plenty of coal left in cellars. Once folks know you want it, it tends to show up. My son and I have removed 8 tons in the last year or so. I now need to remove about 10 tons of stove coal from another cellar. It will be used in the workshop.
In our area you need to clean out the home when it comes up for sale. Coal is considered toxic waste and we are often told we can buy the stove but must take the coal.

That's not a bad deal S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Depends how many steps out of the Hole...
LOL...
Proper setup makes it bearable...
Mechanical Advantage makes Basement Mining manageable...

I have a rental house with an actual coal seam jutting up under a crawl space. Could have done some ACTUAL basement mining in there. Free lifetime supply of coal just for the digging.

Not quite basement mining, last week I pulled about a ton and a half from a shed next to a driveway near Rhinebeck, NY. Filled two buckets at a time then walked them out to my 4x4x8 trailer box. In and out in 90 minutes.
Don

Nice find D-------------

Basement mined close to a ton of pea coal this morning. Was able to get the truck about 20' from the coal bin and only had one step up from ground level.

PS: Truck was upright when I loaded it.

Paulie

Musta been all the weight that kicked her over like that P!! .>)